Environmental Law Professor

Animals, plants, and people all call the Earth home, but this home is slowly becoming a less-than-ideal place to live in. Companies sometimes make decisions that impact the overall health of the Earth. Dumping water into a stream, for example, could make the water too hot for small fishes that live there. As an Environmental Law Professor, you write extensively about these issues, and teach young students how to litigate these cases in a court of law.

Research and writing takes up a significant amount of your time as an Environmental Law Professor. You study how laws regulate the use of water and soil, and how companies interpret those laws.

Sometimes, you study how laws were broken before an environmental disaster occurred. You share the studies you perform and the technical papers you write by publishing them in reputable journals. Reporters often call you and ask for your opinion on the legality of environmental issues.

Teaching in the classroom takes up the rest of your time. In some classes, you stand in front of your students and talk about the issues. As an Environmental Law Professor, you encourage them to participate in discussions about environmental cases, and often ask them to write papers about the topics. You give hard tests, and at the end of the course, you provide each student with a grade.

Students often need extra help tackling these difficult concepts, and you make yourself available to answer questions and help them learn. Keeping office hours, where you stay in your office and provide one-on-one guidance, helps you counsel these students. The same students seem to visit you over and over, and you grow quite fond of them.